A Harder Road to Walk
by Morninglight
Summary: Last in the Digger!verse. Kaidan Alenko and Regan Shepard have survived the Reaper War. But some scars are too deep for them to face by themselves.


Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Trigger warning for depression and survivor's guilt. Some implied sexual intercourse. Last in the Digger!verse.

…

Even sleeping, Kaidan was the consummate gentleman, his body shielding Regan from the cold wall and letting her take the side nearest to the heater. Outside the small prefab house that replaced the old farmhouse blown up by Reapers, the autumn wind sighed through the apple trees which would need to be harvested soon, the maple leaves already red and gold from the first frost. In his more poetic moments, Kaidan compared her orange-blonde hair to autumn leaves and Regan humoured him, though she knew that it looked like a bad peroxide job on dark tresses. She was no prize and sometimes, especially moments like this with Kaidan curled up protectively around her, she wondered what Reaper had hit her maple-flavoured Superman in the head to make him love her.

Once awake, Regan had trouble falling asleep, so she rolled out of bed to let Kaidan enjoy the warmth for a bit. Four years after the Reaper War ended, fresh food was still scarce so the cupboards were stocked with MREs and other survival rations where they weren't filled by jars of apple jam, apple jelly, apple butter, applesauce, apple conserve, apple pie filling, apple cider syrup, pickled apple slices and apple molasses. Then there were the bottles of apple cider, apple cider vinegar and apple liqueur... And bags of dried apple slices. Regan had become very adept at preserving apples in all the twenty or so ways it could be done.

It was like living in Tasmania, just minus the Tasmanian Devils.

Breakfast, as always, was muesli bars served up with reconstituted skim milk. Richer people than they got to have fresh milk and things like bacon while poorer people were lucky to have the skim milk powder and muesli bars. Regan tossed in a spoonful of coffee powder and hot water because Kaidan without his morning coffee was frankly unbearable. She settled, as always, for the cold milk-water mix and gnawing on a couple muesli bars.

The siren call of freshly made coffee brought Kaidan out of his slumber quicker than true love's kiss. Come to think of it, for just-woke-up Kaidan, that probably _was_ true love's kiss. When he was awake and with a coffee in him, that was the safe time to approach him for a morning kiss.

Kaidan shambled around like a zombie until he found the coffee on the steel dining table, Regan having retreated into the shower until it would be safe to emerge. When she came out, he was scratching his head bemusedly, sparks of blue light from his biotic field crackling around his fingers. "I'm thinking of breeding varrens," he announced suddenly. "I want steaks again."

"Know anyone who'd trade a few breeding pairs for several tonnes of preserved apple goods?" Regan asked dryly. "Because we don't have the credits to buy them."

"Apparently New Zealand is covered in varrens, so Ngaire's offering us some," Kaidan replied, just as dryly.

"What happened, they eat all the sheep?" Regan dried her hair and reached for her jacket. "You enjoy your coffee. I'll start picking apples."

Turned out biotics were useful for more than just throwing people around and lifting things. Regan, who could manage three weak mass effect fields, could strip an apple-laden tree in a minute while Kaidan Lifted massive bins of the fruit she harvested into storage silos to be sorted. They kept the crappy stuff for themselves, giving the wormy rotten apples to the neighbours up the road for their pigs and varrens, preserved half and traded the rest. In the British Columbia interior, barter had become a way of life again because, as always, they worked on rebuilding the cities first and that was where the cash was.

Of course, Kaidan was out in under a minute, probably having tossed back his coffee like a college student doing shots. He apparently couldn't stand the thought of Regan working on her own for more than a few moments. They fell into the familiar rhythm of harvesting and hauling apples for the better part of the morning before stopping for brunch, which was freshly pressed apple juice and protein bars, and then going onto pressing cider as a break.

"We need to sell some of our cider and liqueur," Regan announced. "Because if I see one more bottle of apple-flavoured stuff and can't get credits for it…"

"Huh, we could send bottles to Admiral Hackett," Kaidan mused thoughtfully. "If he likes it, the brass will be drinking it in no time."

"You handle the military bureaucracy better than I do," Regan agreed before returning to work.

They toiled in silence, returning to harvesting as the sun crept towards the western horizon, turning the sky red to match the maple leaves. Regan had her regrets about refusing a place on the Alliance General Staff but when she looked at Kaidan, his handsome face serene as he worked his grandfather's land, she didn't mind them so much.

Six months of soul searching, working and wrangling led them to where they were. Regan learned not to call turians cockatoos to their faces and Kaidan developed an appreciation for the various meanings of the word 'piss' in Australian English. They still had their moments – no one was perfect – but she could live with where they were now.

Dinner was Beef Stroganoff MRE with an apple pie for dessert. Kaidan was a good cook, better than Regan, and he managed to make military rations delicious. If she ever saw another strawberry-flavoured protein bar, she'd probably go insane.

They made love after dinner, Kaidan dozing off as Regan watched the bars of the heater glow orange in the darkness. It was now the doubts and regrets tended to attack, reminding her of the military that had been her entire life ever since she left the gangs, questioning what Kaidan saw in her, even wondering if she'd made the right choices in the Reaper War. She'd led so many soldiers to their deaths because she wanted to test herself against the Reapers, to prove that just because she'd been too chicken shit to enter the N7 programme she was still a good soldier.

Angry with herself, Regan got out of bed and pulled on Kaidan's old Biotic Division jacket. She was alive where others weren't – why couldn't she be happy with that? Why did she have to question every fucking good thing that was in her life? Kaidan seemed happy, even content, though they still both had nightmares from when the Reapers attacked. Why couldn't she put herself in the same frame of mind?

She stared into the orange glow of the heater as the hours slipped by.

…

"Regan, you need to see a therapist."

Kaidan took a deep breath and made the announcement after seeing a bleary-eyed Regan wrapped in his old jacket stare into the heater, obviously not getting any sleep. The depression was kicking in more often, the Australian refusing to articulate her feelings even though she knew Kaidan would stand by her every step of the way. Shepard was stubborn and self-reliant, the flipside of the Antipodean 'she'll be right' attitude meaning she would try to plod on alone until she fell apart.

Part of it might be the fact their lives were an endless cycle of tending apple trees, eating the same military crap that called itself food and pretty much only hearing from their friends now and then. Kaidan knew very well that Regan turned down a position on the General Staff for his dream of working on the orchard – and he knew that at the heart of it, she was at her best in a crisis, making snap decisions that changed the face of the battlefield and shooting someone in the face if need be. Humanity had too few leaders, both military and civilian, for the woman who essentially won the Pacific stage of the Reaper War and helped Ashley Williams get to the Crucible to moulder on a farm.

"You're right," Regan admitted, as if she'd brooded all night and lost the battle with her will. "I should be happy: I got a good man and I survived the Reaper War. But I can't get rid of the feeling I should have done better and how many died because I got into a pissing match with the Reapers."

"We did the best we could with what we had," Kaidan told her softly. "I know it's a platitude, but it's true."

"You tell me that, Ngaire tells me that and even Hackett stopped by to say it," Regan answered heavily. "Maybe if someone with a Doctor in front of their name tells me, I'll believe it."

The Australian got to her feet. "Let's harvest the rest of those apples before the frost ruins them."

They managed to get the last of the apples in and that night, frost hit hard and iced over their solar panels, meaning that the next day was spent in defrosting them. Kaidan fired off a message to Ngaire and Hackett while Regan was in the shower, asking for advice on a good therapist for a traumatised veteran. Time to make use of some of their VA entitlements.

Next morning over breakfast, Kaidan told her that Sha'ira, an asari therapist who worked out of Vancouver these days, was available to see her in two days. Regan, whose casual racism had never extended to asari even before her attitude improved on working with aliens, simply sighed and nodded in agreement to see the Matriarch.

Two days later, Kaidan fired up their battered car and drove them into Vancouver after locking the orchard down. Regan looked like she was marching towards the firing squad instead of a therapist and he took her hand, clasping it to show his love for her. She smiled weakly at him as they walked into the shiny new Alliance HQ. Trust the military to build its infrastructure first.

Sha'ira was a graceful asari in a fine business suit, which no doubt made some of the soldiers _very_ happy to see her. Rumour was she'd been something called a 'Consort', the implications of which were none of Kaidan's business, until the Citadel became the Crucible. Now she counselled traumatised soldiers while the mass relays to asari space were being rebuilt.

When Regan emerged an hour later, she still looked hag-ridden but there was a referral in her hand for psychiatric services. Then it was Kaidan's turn to enter because Hackett had ordered him to go to therapy too, though the Canadian was fairly certain he had no need of it.

Sha'ira gently but firmly walked Kaidan through the Reaper War, dredging up old pain that he'd buried deep. Being told that his hero complex was a result of Brain Camp and his need to be a 'good guy' stung more than he would; he'd moved on with that shit, or so he thought. Or so he thought…

An hour later, feeling like he'd been wrung dry, Kaidan exited the office to find Admiral Hackett talking quietly to Regan. "-I know you're retired, but if you're up to it, we could use a new training instructor here in Vancouver," the supreme commander of the Alliance's few forces said, looking over at Kaidan. "The N7 programme is being relocated here because the facilities in Brazil were utterly devastated."

Regan's eyebrow shot up. "You'd want me to oversee the N7 programme even though I was too chicken shit to go through it?"

"Not the programme itself, though you'd be certainly instructing its members in unconventional and improvised tactics, but the training facility and its staff would answer to you – like your old friend Major Patel back in Enoggera."

"Patel was a good man," Regan mused softly. "Always figured if I couldn't be a David Anderson, I'd be like him or my old foster carer Matilda."

"It's soldiers like Patel that help us find the Andersons, the Williams and the Vegas," Hackett agreed quietly.

Regan took a deep breath. "I'm going into therapy," she informed the Admiral. "Sha'ira diagnosed me with chronic depression."

"I know. I received the diagnosis, though not the medical particulars, shortly after the appointment ended, because I wanted to see if you were fit for duty," Hackett admitted. "If you're not up to this, Shepard, I completely understand."

She flicked Kaidan a quick look and he smiled. "I think you can do it if we can have a few months to get ready," he told her. "Sha'ira suggested I hire a few vets for the farm because she told me I was working myself into the ground trying to be a hero."

"Mr. Maple-Flavoured Superman," Regan teased.

If anyone else called him that, he'd have to Charge them. But coming from her, it was a tolerable nickname.

"It will take a few months to set up," Hackett said quietly. "Just… have a think about it, Shepard."

She nodded. "I will," she promised, saluting Hackett.

When they left the HQ, Regan looked up at the iron-grey sky. "I want to do this," she admitted.

"Then do so. I have to admit, I've been missing city life." The look of surprise Regan gave him made Kaidan grin. "What?"

"You seemed happy there and I didn't want to make you feel unhappy." Regan hugged herself, shoulder-length red-gold hair stirred by the cool breeze. "To be frank, I'm fucking sick of apples."

Kaidan laughed. "Miss the strawberry-flavoured protein bars, do you?"

"I fucking hate those too. Reminds me of the war."

Her stark admission wiped the laughter from Kaidan's voice. When Regan was vulnerable, she was really vulnerable. "Then we'll stay here for a couple days, see if we can afford some steak and fresh food that isn't apples, and talk about the future?"

Regan smiled faintly. "I could do that."

Kaidan entwined his fingers with hers. "It'll be a tougher road than I thought for both of us, but there's no one else I'd rather walk it with."

"Agreed." Regan leaned over and kissed him before looking over her referral papers. "Let's get these appointments made."

As he had during the Reaper War, Kaidan let Regan take charge. It would be a long, hard, rocky road ahead of them but hopefully they'd walk it together.


End file.
